Hari's Corner

I have always hated binary downloads: you know - the files you cannot download except by clicking on a link on a popup and which hides the real download URL behind a redirection page or a script. The kinds where you cannot just copy the URL and allow your download manager to connect. But when I experienced it again with none other than ATI, I have really discovered a new level of hatred for this phenomenon. I just wanted to download the latest ATI Linux driver for my Radeon 9600Pro card, so I went to their Linux driver download page. The download size is about 60 MB in size so I fired up KGet. Nasty surprise! KGet only downloads a stub HTML file of about a few KB whenever I try to use the link. The real download URL is hidden behind a redirection or a script. The only way to download it is to use the browser.

Here is a message from this stub HTML file:

You're using a download manager. Download managers usually offer to search for alternative download locations. While this is nice for the user, it's bad for the webmaster because a download which originated on another site could theoretically still be downloaded from this site, without anybody knowing. Workaround to this restriction: Set up your download manager to send a HTTP referrer, and when you click on a link on the ATI site the download will then be authorized.

The people at ATI ought to know better than putting me through all this hassle as a user of an ATI chipset product! I still don't understand their workaround instruction which is about as cryptic and user-unfriendly as it can get. For that matter, the whole ATI website is a mess of cryptic URLs and "authorized pages" which cannot be linked to properly. I'd sure like to meet their webmaster. I have a thing or two to say to him/her.

I can understand protecting important content using binary downloads. Probably software you wouldn't want anybody to download just like that without a password. But a free driver, for God's sake! If the download size was insignificant (maybe a few hundred KB maximum) it doesn't really matter. But when you have a huge download of several megabytes, you'd better give a great reason for preventing people from downloading stuff using an ordinary download manager. There are still a lot of people in this world who're on slow speed connections including dial-up, you know! What can I say? As a webmaster you'd better respect them or you wouldn't win too many fans.

In cricketing terms, India were dew... sorry, er... due to lose a match after four wins in a row. It was a Sunday, it was a day-night affair and India played with an inexperienced bowling attack. It was Sri Lanka's best chance of notching up their first victory in this Videocon Cup. While I give Sri Lanka all credit for winning this match, I must say that they played in favourable conditions under lights. Sri Lankans love chasing under lights and India were left defending a mediocre score of 285 without a strong bowling attack to defend it.

The Indians didn't play badly. Though tempting, it would be unfair to label them complacent just because they lost a game after winning four in a row to seal the series. It was only natural that they wanted to give the younger players an opportunity to go out there and show their mettle with a tough season ahead. And to be honest, I think they did a fair job under the circumstances. However, the hostility of the conditions under lights with the dew taking over the outfield proved too much for these young bowlers. Hell, even stronger bowling sides like Pakistan and Australia have struggled with dewy conditions in the subcontinent over the years. It was too much to expect these guys to bowl out Sri Lanka on such a good batting track. By the way, I've never been the biggest advocate of playing day and night games particularly in India, because the playing conditions change drastically in the evening and give one side or the other an unfair advantage. I say this not because India lost and Sri Lanka won in this instance, but because in the larger scheme of things it takes the competitive edge out of cricket by not providing a level-playing field. Then again, cricket administrators have never seriously looked into this issue in the past because it's the "spectacle" and the "show" of playing under lights which count, not the cricketing aspect of the matter. So they continue to brush this issue aside year after year.

I strongly believe that India lost the game in the first half of the match, probably at the toss. Even as early as when Yuvraj came out to bat and struggled to get the ball off the square, I knew that it was not India's day. Talking of Yuvraj, he seems to have hit a rough patch. The problem with him seems to be in his mind more than with his bat, because he appears to be unsure whether his job is to defend or to attack - whether to graft for his runs by playing himself in or to play his natural game by going after the bowling. In that confusion, he's not really been doing anything at all with the bat. Unlike Kaif, he needs a more clear cut role in the team, because he is not comfortable batting at any slot that is given to him. Maybe it's an issue for Greg Chappell to look into.

I cannot explain the feeling or why I thought that way, but somehow I knew very early on in the match that Sri Lanka had a 90% chance of winning the match. In other words, it was almost certain. The best illustration of this trend was probably when Dhoni walked out to bat and walked back in after facing just one ball. He was a touch unlucky with the decision, but it kind of exemplified the day's play - maybe because it was a Sunday and maybe it was because it was a day-night affair. Whatever it was, it was just that kind of a day when the Indian batsmen gifted away their wickets just when they were starting to get going. Maharoof, the supersub hit the jackpot by running up and bowling and getting four wickets just like that. I don't think I've ever seen a less deserved four wicket haul than that. Luck sided the Sri Lankans all the way and to be fair, they earned their share of it by playing good cricket all through.

All in all, I think the Indians would gain a lot from this defeat if taken in the right spirit. Even though Sri Lanka won, it was a tough fight until the final few overs and the fielding standards the Indians maintained were excellent, the run out of Jayawardena being the highlight. The young players have now got some exposure in tough conditions and this experience should help them get mentally tougher. If anything, this defeat should sting them really hard because that's the way you come back and motivate yourself to perform in the next match. Just look at the Australians: they've come out and mercilessly decimated a hapless West Indies team in the first Test match at the Gabba. Since the Ashes defeat, they have looked much hungrier for success because they absolutely hate losing. They appear that much more motivated to prove that they are the best side in the world. This new-look Indian team should learn a few things from that. Win or lose, the attitude is what matters. Picture courtesy: news.bbc.co.uk

I recently read an article on successful blogging and I think that while being well-meaning, the author basically failed to understand the wide range of bloggers with a whole different set of priorities, reasons and expectations while maintaining a blog. The blogosphere is a complex world out there and I think the author's recommendations cannot apply universally to many kinds of blogs and bloggers. I'll add my own thoughts to the points raised by the author. While I cannot copy-paste the full article here, I'll just say why I disagree with some of the key points. The quoted portions are in italics.

You should begin your blog with a free blog hosting service such as Journal Home.

This need not be so. I think the power and flexibility of hosting your own blog is much more comfortable. Again, there is no hard and fast rule. I just think that the author should not assume that everybody out there who chooses a free option does so because he/she is a newbie. There are plenty of professional blogs out there hosted on blogspot.com.

You should first decide on a product, service, or topic which interest you.

Why so? I have a wide range of interests which I want to write about. I find limiting the scope of a blog irksome and I like to explore my writing talents. Why should I write just about Linux? Or just about books? Why cannot I write about all things that I find interesting? After all, blogs can be topical or not. It's totally up to the author. Again, I don't say the point is wrong. All I say is that the should is a rather strong point here.

Update Daily (nothing less) This step is a must and not a suggestion.

Why is this a must? I know of some excellent blogs out there that have a good readership base and those blogs don't get updated daily. In fact, I would go the other route and say that those who update daily are actually running the risk of running out of interesting things to say and becoming stale and boring. I think that everybody should feel free to update when they want to. Not just because they *have* to. Too many bloggers become boring by repeating themselves on a daily basis. Just find your comfort zone, that's all.

It's no secret. You must have traffic to profit from blogs

Simple: I don't want to make money off my blog. I am sure that there are many others who share the same opinion. Unless you're a celebrity or otherwise extraordinary, you will just grow old waiting.

Track Your Blog. How do you know if your blog has traffic? Just because no one is leaving comments doesn't mean your blog isn't growing. Many visitors do not leave comments but they are returning visitors.

I agree with this point. Comments are nice though. I always appreciate a message or two, if only to get a little bit of feedback now and then.

Listen to Your Audience

When using the proper page counter you should begin to see how others are finding your blog and if through search engines then which keywords are being used to find your blog. If constantly your blog is being found by 1 or more keywords then focus your blog around those keywords to make it even more powerful

I don't think one should write on something just to strengthen "keywords" on search engines. Again, the writer of this article seems to assume that every blogger out there wants traffic, traffic and more traffic. Nobody should write just to get read. People should write when they have something to say.

Use multiple blogging accounts (free) to attract more people.

See above.

Short & Concise

I'd rather make a stronger point by using more words if necessary rather than keep an article short just for the sake of keeping it short. I think each blogger has his own levels of verbosity and each blogger should find his/her own ideal word count. For the umpteenth time, no hard and fast rules.

Try to include non-advertising graphics, pictures, photos, and art in your blog entries. Not too much.

Not too much is the key. Use graphics lightly to keep load times to a minimum. Again, use graphics only when necessary. Not because X, Y or Z said so.

A blog is most successful when it is kept personal.

Every blog has its own content and style depends on the author. Again, though I agree that an informal way of writing is good, there is no hard and fast rule that such kinds of blogs are more successful than others.

Interact With Your Visitors

I actually agree with this point though I don't think that a "regular feature" is a must to keep visitors coming in. Again, only at my convenience.

Make Money

No thanks!

You're a professional now! What are you still doing with that free blog hosting service?

You don't need to be a professional to host your own blog. Take me, for instance.

Ok, so I am a bit critical of that article and I do think that the author has got it wrong on more than one point. I think the key issue is the failure to recognize that every blogger out there has his or own exclusive and personal reason for blogging which might not match other people's intentions. Notice how many "should"s and "must"s the author uses. I think there is a failure to appreciate the huge variety of blogs out there with so many different agendas. In other words, everybody has their own definition of success which need not match the definition of this author. But on the whole, I appreciate the efforts of the author in writing such an article to at least give me some points to think about even though I don't agree with many of them.

Here's a screen capture of my Debian desktop with KDE running. I have quite a lot of photos taken in Switzerland, Belgium and Germany by my mother on a business trip, which I use as wallpapers. Some breaktaking scenery! Here's just a sample. Notice the detail of the ripples in the water: just wonderful.

I installed SUSE Linux 10 a few days ago and I must say that I was quite impressed with this distro on the whole. It is one polished, professional Linux distribution with a smooth, painless installation procedure that is very beginner-friendly while at the same time being easily accessible to the expert user who wants to customize the whole process. I for example, needed to customize the partitions manually and also choose not to install a boot loader and it was quite easy to achieve this with the "expert" mode tools during the setup. At the same time, somebody who has a basic system can easily breeze through the installation with the default partitioning scheme. It all depends on the level of expertise and how much control you want over the process. For instance, if you have another Linux installed on your system, I suggest a custom partitioning scheme.

The installation of SUSE is basically a two-step process. First it installs the base system using only the first CD and then you reboot. Once you do and continue the installation by booting into the newly installed system, you get to configure your hardware, locale and system parameters and settings. Once this is done, you get a fully working Linux system. On my system at least, hardware detection was fully automated and I didn't get a single prompt for any settings. Of course, experts can choose to configure their hardware manually as well. It's painless, fast and easy. The downside of SUSE installation is that you need all 5 CDs even for a basic installation because the packages are spread across the CDs and you never know which essential package is on which CD unless you really dig deep to investigate individual package files. This was a definite downside because I was forced to download all 5 CDs before I could install SUSE. Of course, if you choose to buy a boxed set from Novell, you could avoid this hassle.

YaST is the real strength of SUSE, though. It's a fully integrated system configuration tool that does pretty much everything you might need from hardware, software, network configuration, server setup and other system administration. However though it's GUI, you will need to learn it and due to the sheer number of modules, you will need some time to really learn how to use it. On the other hand, a basic desktop user won't really need to do much system administration except software management.

While on the subject of package management, I want to talk a little more on this from the perspective of a Debian user. SUSE uses the RPM system and has a wide variety of packages available, but not surprisingly it comes nowhere close to matching the size of the Debian software repository, which has more than 15,000 official packages. Though this is understandable, I did find it irksome to note that there are no SUSE packages for gFTP and audacity, for instance. As a Debian user who is spoilt on the huge official software repository (not to mention those found on apt-get.org), I found this limitation to be a turn off. On the other hand, the default SUSE package repository is large enough for typical users who may not need all the stuff that I generally use. By the way, there might be SUSE repositories online which have unofficial SUSE packages of software not found in the CDs, but I must admit that I haven't really investigated this aspect yet.

One other minor issue is that the default desktop fonts are a bit odd but that can be easily corrected by installing the Microsoft core TrueType fonts as a patch in the YaST online update module and customizing your fonts.

My impressions? SUSE is very much a desktop oriented distro, but not necessarily limited to the desktop user. It's polished and professional and looks like a complete product. While YaST is excellent overall, the software management part of it is not nearly as convenient or polished as apt-get on Debian. The best part of SUSE 10 is probably that it's hardware detection is great, it's installation is smooth and painless and requires minimum manual intervention by default. That might really encourage users new to Linux to try it out. But if you are an experienced Linux user, particularly with distros like Debian or Slackware and you are used to being in control of your whole system, you might find the limitations of SUSE irksome.

Note: I have also submitted this review at LinuxQuestions.org, where you can find SUSE reviews by other users as well.

India has wiped out Sri Lanka 4-0 in the home series. All of a sudden there are questions asked about the second best ODI team in the world because they have lost four matches in a row. In a sense it was inevitable that there are calls for change from former cricketers and experts, most notably Arjuna Ranatunga.

Why this sudden fall from favour? Marvan Atapattu put on a brave face during the first couple of matches, but in the third and fourth ODI we could just feel that he had lost the plot. Except Muralitharan, none of the Sri Lankan bowlers found their comfort zone in this series. We played on some fantastic batting tracks and the nature of the Sri Lankan bowling attack has been exposed. His captaincy too has been come under heavy criticism, but I feel sorry when the captain is accused for not leading the team properly. After all, his 87 off 100 balls in Pune was probably the right tonic for his team to put up a fighting total of 261 on the board. But then, after the early breakthroughs, Sri Lanka just couldn't keep up the pressure against an Indian team already strengthened by their supersub, Suresh Raina. And in the end, that substitution was crucial - he steered India home after major hiccups in the middle order.

In analysing Sri Lanka's failure in this series, I can think of a few reasons why they haven't really performed. First of all, I think that they are not at all comfortable with the new ICC rules: the powerplay and the supersub. They haven't really found an answer to the powerplay situation - when to utilize it and when to bring on their ace card Muralitharan into the attack. On more than one occasion, Atapattu appeared all at sea while utilizing his powerplay: not knowing whether to attack or to defend. On the other hand, India has benefitted greatly because of the supersub rule. They have played their cards judiciously and made full use of the powerplay situation, both while batting and while bowling. I always felt that the new supersub rule would benefit teams like India which have more specialists than all-rounders than teams like Sri Lanka, which rely on batting all-rounders like Dilshan and bowling all-rounders like Maharoof. I think that was the case here. For a long time Indian cricket had been suffering from a lack of flexibility which an all-rounder provides. The question always was about whether to pick four bowlers and one all-rounder or five specialist bowlers in the team. The lack of a real quality all-rounder always hurt badly. The new supersub rule has really solved one aspect of the issue. The other aspect of playing an extra batsman has been solved by the presence of Dhoni for the time being. We can now pick four or five bowlers according to the situation and then supersub them out when needed. Dravid has used this effectively to India's advantage and the results were there for all to see.

Another reason why Sri Lanka has failed here is the match conditions. We play a lot of day games in this country on a variety of pitches and under different weather conditions. Early morning moisture does play a role in influencing the decision at the toss. And all the tracks have been quicker and more batting friendly this time around. Spinners haven't really been able to attack the batsmen as much as they would have liked. Compare this to Sri Lanka, where the conditions are vastly different and most matches are played on slow pitches at the Premadasa in Colombo with an odd game played at the SSC or at centres like Galle, Kandy or Dambulla. The pitches are usually slow to start off with and get slower and lower as the game progresses. Sri Lankan slow bowlers love such conditions under lights. Unfortunately for them, these Indian pitches haven't really deteriorated as the game progressed and we have had excellent batting conditions in daylight. Then again, Indian batsmen love the ball coming on to the bat and we have always prospered on tracks with true pace and bounce.

All in all, I wouldn't count Sri Lanka out yet. Atapattu sure needs a change in strategy in the last three ODIs. He has to sit down and assess the conditions as well as how to use the new ICC rules to his advantage. He has to be more aggressive while using Murali and Chaminda Vaas. It's important that Sri Lanka bag a couple of wins at least going into the test series to keep up their morale. They will be motivated by that and they need to regain some pride. They are still a strong side and even in their loss at Pune, they showed signs of resurgence. India should not rest on their laurels but try and polish off their opponents while they're still down. That will be the acid test of Dravid's captaincy - how to motivate his team to do just that now that the series is in the bag.

Picture courtesy: uk.sports.yahoo.com